Hello world,
I’m am a university student from
Hong Kong. Since June 2019, our city has been left in a humanitarian crisis. University campuses turned into a battleground between the police and students, streets were smoked with toxic tear gas and fringed with rubber bullets throughout the night and all we could see in the news day by day were brutal and violent scenes.
This all began in June 2019, when 2 Million protesters came onto the streets to strike for a ban of the
Extradition Law. Unfortunately, the government turned a blind eye towards people’s demands
and the protest soon escalated into a tensioned fight between the cops and protestors which sustained for more than half a year.
The consequence is heavy and irredeemable.
Protestors were beaten by the police to bone fracture.
Protestors and even journalists got shot in the eye by rubber bullets and lost vision.
Underaged protestor got shot by a gun in chest.
11 suicidal cases were linked to the protest according to the respective posthumous papers written by the deceased.
The list of goes on. On top of physical burden, the psychological scars left in our hearts and burden brought to the environment could hardly heal.
Under the circumstances,
schools were suspended till the end of semester one and people could hardly go to work as normal. The city is in sorrow.
Shortly after the re-opening of semester two, the world is attacked by the deadly
coronavirus. Being a city close to mainland china, medical staffs and citizens called to forbid travellers from entering Hong Kong via China.
And again, the demand fell on deaf ears.
Following the outbreak of local infection cases in Hong Kong,
both work and school are suspended.There are barely local people, not to mention tourists on the streets. Shops, restaurants and other business were poorly affected and many of them could only terminate their business. Peopleand even medical front line fighters struggled to buy masks. Due to the shortage of masks supply, it is common to see people queue up for more than 10 hours just to buy a box of surgical mask with a marked up price. I even witnessed people snatched boxes of masks from the store in desperation. The situation is saddening.
Despite all, we held our heads up.
Schools adapted to online teaching and people tried to continue working in home office. However, I could observe there are those who faced
immense financial pressure, namely the
education sector which includes private education centres, interests groups centres and play groups centres. Unlike larger institutions and other business sectors such as food and beverage and retailing, the private education sector do not fall into the eligible criteria of government aid, leaving the
8,000 registered educationcenters in dismay. We are still on strike to ask the government for financial support, but until this very moment,
they have not responded to our voices.
My mother is one out of many who owes a private English tutorial Centre. Being a daughter of hers, I witnessed how she struggled through the times when her business was badly affected by the protest last year as well as the coronavirus now. She has paused work since mid-January in accordance to school suspension notice suggested by the Education Bureau. Being the Breadwinner of our family, her suspension in work has left our family with
0 income for nearly two months, but she still has to take care of our family with four members.
In face of the situation, I
took up a part-time job, but it was still hard for us to afford the high expenses of living in the city (including rent, education expenses and daily expenses). It is why I am asking for help such that my family and I could overcome this time of crisis.
I am just an ordinary student who lives in a small city with little power and say. I truly understand that not only am my family and I are suffering in the hard times under political and health crisis, but many others who live in the city as well as the other parts of the world like Chile which is in protest and Australia in a disastrous fire.
Thus, if this fund unbelievably receives more than the amounted listed, I would donate it to organizations related to the private education sector. Further information will be posted if any miracle happens. I hereby thank all generous hearts and wish you all good health.
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